


The Hundredth Wife

by StrawberrySpaceShip



Category: Original Work
Genre: Biting, Blood, F/M, Gothic, Horror, Paranormal, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 10:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18134621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberrySpaceShip/pseuds/StrawberrySpaceShip
Summary: The people of Casmenda have a secret. Their prosperity is not of their own making, but by the grace of a being far beyond their understanding. Few have seen him. Some of the younger generation believed his presence nothing more than a ghost story. Until he came for his wife.





	The Hundredth Wife

The King has lived for as long as my family line has existed. At least, that's what the rumors say. Truthfully, no one knows how old he is, or what he is. The King is just that. He is The King, and that's all anyone needs to know of him. That, and his desire to pick new wives every so often. What happens to the old ones... no one knows that either. 

The last picking, according to Mother, had been when I was a child. She said I shouldn't have to worry about it in my lifetime. My mother was wrong about many things. This was no exception. When the announcement had been made, women lined up in droves around the castle walls, desperate for a better life, for whatever The King could give them. Anything. Everything. But there were those of us, too, with questions, who wanted nothing to do with a man who changed wives like most changed hats. Perhaps that's why he chose me. 

The decision wasn't some lavish declaration, nor did I kick and scream my way to the castle. He walked the lines, feet in a steady rhythm, and stopped before me. Nothing more. It was as it now is. I am His, and that is how it shall be. 

The Ceremony itself had been drab as well, no fancy foods or dances. The King has had many wives. Such things, I'd imagine, grow dull with time. The only mark of our union at all was the tiny scar now on my wrist. Blood drawn to bind. 

It would be almost a year before I saw him again. I may be his wife, but I was not the only woman occupying the castle. I spent nights wondering why I had been picked at all if he intended to occupy himself without me. Not that I ever voiced these words. The Castle held more in a single room than I could ever have hoped to have in my lifetime. It would be another six months before I learned that it was all I would ever have. Wives do not leave the castle, but I did not know that, had no reason to when I met him for the first time.  
I had been in the castle for almost a year, had fallen into a nice rhythm when, upon returning from a stint in the library, I found him sat on my bed. His face was young, far too young for a man of legends, and uncomfortably handsome. His voice, I did not hear, as he did not speak. Whatever I expected, and truthfully, I had lost any idea of what to expect from him at this point, this was not it. He looked at me, far too long a glance, bowed his head and walked back out. I had been too stunned to stop him, to inquire as to what the hell he was doing. Even if I had the mind, I don't think the words would have come.  It is forbidden to speak first when before The King. That's what I had always been told. 

He visited again only two weeks later. Again, he sat upon my bed, finely dressed, face painted with a scowl. Again, he did not speak. This time, he did not leave either. I stood in my own doorway, or, I guess, it technically belonged to him, unsure of what I should do. He patted the bed, inviting me forward. I hesitated, and he patted the bed again, a firmer hand. Now It said to me. Come here right now. So I did.  Again, words did not come to me, I wasn't sure what I would say, but the silence ate at me. I wrung my hands, tapped my feet against the floor, but he refused to speak. I couldn't bring myself to look at his face for more than a glance. Honestly, a part of me was hoping he would just leave again. Finally, the silence became too loud in my ears, the stillness aching. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to speak first, but at this point, I didn't care.

"Where have you been?" The words slipped from my mouth soft and sheepish. When I glanced at him, his stern expression faded to a smile.  
"She finally speaks." And fuck he sounded as gorgeous as he looked. 

"You were trying to make me uncomfortable?" Again, the words fell out. Gods this wasn't fair. I was playing a game I didn't even know the rules to. 

"I wanted to see how long you'd wait." I wanted to see how obedient you are. 

"Was that long enough for you, or perhaps you'd like to sit in silence some more?" Don't antagonize him. My logical brain reeled, but the embarrassment of the whole thing caught me way before any sense did.

He was making a fool of me. Ten months without a word and then this. No. I would not live this way. I just wouldn't. To my surprise, he laughed. It wasn't the sound of mockery, or the amusement one would feel at a dog doing something silly, the type of laugh I expected at that moment. No, his laugh was rich, genuine amusement, as if I had made a clever joke. Perhaps this was all a joke to him. I still couldn't say. 

"What's your name?" I blinked. Why should I have thought he would know, would have bothered to remember? Still, my mind stuttered. 

The word stuck to my tongue. It felt wrong like I shouldn't say it, like it was a curse. 

"Elvira." He repeated, head tilting to the side. "Elvira." He mumbled again, his hand falling to my chin, turning it toward him. "Yes, I rather like the sound of that."

"Thank you?"

He looked into my eyes for far too long a moment, my chin held hostage. Again, that daunting silence fell.  
"Do I frighten you?" He said, finally.

"N-" No I wanted to say no.  "Yes."  
He smiled at me again, the words ripped from my body. Perhaps my anger wasn't the only thing making me loud-mouthed. 

"What did you do?" Yes. He truly did frighten me. 

"I've done nothing."

But I knew that was a lie. I felt my tongue swell at the word, the way it had left me. That had not been a disconnect between my brain and mouth, that had been a force at work. 

"What did you do?" I asked again.  
"I did nothing." He replied.

"What's happening to me?" I asked instead.

His thumb rubbed my cheek. "Now you're asking the proper questions." I wanted to scream, push him away. "You are my wife." He answered. "You may not lie to me." 

"How."

"It just is."

"Can you lie to me?" 

Again, that gentle caress of his fingers. good girl. "Either way, the smart answer would be no, wouldn't it." He sighed. "Yes, Elvira. I do as I wish."

Great. Because that isn't completely unfair or anything. 

His eyes squinted for a moment before he finally released my face. "You are odd." He said flatly. "Such an odd girl."

From the way he said it, I couldn't tell if it was meant as a compliment or an insult. Before I could process it, though, he stood, leaving me without any proper warning or goodbye. Whatever he had come for, he had gotten. I, on the other hand, was just left with more questions and no actual answers. You cannot lie to me. I knew then as well as I know now how troublesome a fact that would be. Still, it was a good thing to learn early, to know at least a fraction of where I stood with him. 

His visits became more frequent from then on. Each time the process relatively the same. He would speak without saying much at all. I never knew anything more when he left than when he had entered, but the same could not be said for him. No, he learned all sorts of things. He learned about runt, our pet cat named for his place in the litter. He learned about my penchant for spending time in the library, though I strongly suspect he knew long before he asked. In fact, he probably already knew everything I told him during those visits. Still, he went through the motions as if he didn't. He asked about my mother, my hopes, my fears, intimate squirmy things I did not wish to speak of,  but could not resist answering. He never commented one way or the other, never gave any indication he felt enough to care. 

It was the start of spring, the first time I encountered him outside my room. The flowers had started to bloom, the chill finally receding from the air. I had been too shy to leave the castle last spring, too afraid to ask the servants if I was even allowed the privilege. This spring, however, the castle had become my home. I saw no reason to. So, in the early morning, I took a cup of tea and headed out to the garden for some peace. Not a single guard paid me a single glance. No one warned me that I would not be alone in that garden. I made it all of two steps when he saw me. He was perched upon the steps, just as I had planned to be, for only a flash of a moment before he was dragging me back inside. No one told me I wasn't allowed to leave, but it was clear then, that I certainly was not. His grip held steady, not painful or guiding, but somewhere in the middle, like a properly fitted shackle. He refused to speak, again. It was a habit of his that I resented, that I wished to scream at him for, but I was no fool. 

"Why can't I go in the garden?" I asked when we reached my room. I didn't dare speak before then, though I honestly could not say why. 

"Because you can't." 

"That's not an answer." 

"Because I won't allow you to. Better?"

Anger bubbled then. I had been here for a year and a half, and I still had no idea of what the rules were, of what he wanted to me. Perhaps I could blame the spell, whatever had bound me to only speak truths to him, but I think it was more simplistic than that. I think I simply boiled over. 

"No. It isn't better. Not one bit of this is even remotely okay. No one bit of it. And I am goddamn sick of it." And royally dead. I knew little of The King before I entered the castle, and had learned nothing to this point, but the stories had always been clear. One rule I did know: he did not tolerate such rudeness. 

He roughly slammed the door, pushing me deeper into the room. Fear filled my lungs, a different sort of fear than I had grown used to. He exuded this odd aura, this feeling of dread and terror. Anticipation. That's what I felt all those times. The knowledge of what he was, of what it was said he could do. This was not that fear. This was primal horror. I wanted to run far away from the anger in that expression because there was anger. I had never seen him express much of anything until that moment. 

"Sit." He ordered. And maybe I was too delirious on rage and terror, but I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing as I obeyed. 

My lips were dry, I realized because there was blood in my mouth. I didn't dare look up. but he noticed anyway.  
"Stupid girl." He muttered, voice raspy and exasperated. As if he too, had acted only in a fit of anger. As if he now did not know what to do with me. It was a different view of him, one to which I never grew accustomed. 

He loomed over me, those empty eyes watching, and another bout of that painful silence fell. Oh, how this man loved his silence, the uneasiness that it evoked. His thumb found my lip, examining the tiny split there. "Stupid, stupid girl." He muttered a minute before his tongue found the same mark. I wasn't sure what I should do, what I could do. His tongue ran over the cut in my lip, and I fell back, his hand wrapping around my throat to hold me there. Again, that shackle of a grip, steady but not quite painful. As quickly as it had started, it was over. His mouth released mine, his hand lifting away. It was hard to know for sure it hadn't been a daydream, a flash of a moment. My own tongue found the split, but the mark had gone. There was no sign of even that. Perhaps I was losing my mind, holed up in that dirty old castle. Perhaps that's just what he wanted me to believe. 

He made no acknowledgment of his own action, rage cleared from his face. "You do not leave." He stated. I almost didn't register what he meant. "And you do not behave foolishly. I should not have to tell you that."  
"You haven't exactly been clear." In the past twenty seconds, he has sent just as many messages. "So no, I have no way of 'knowing that'."

"You'd like me to be clear?" The tone was so... patronizing. It was as if he was speaking to a tantruming toddler. "You are here for me. So when I tell you that you are not allowed, there is no further discussion to be had." He smiled at me, the sort of knowing superior look. "And watch how openly you bleed.” He kissed my temple softly. "You taste wonderful." and he was gone.

Exhaustion filled every part of me, and I hadn't bothered to change before I crashed back down for a nap. I didn't even lift the blankets. It'd have been too much of an effort.

He visited me again the next week. No mention was made of the last time we saw each other, of what He had said and done. That it happened at all. But I had learned. Weeks in this castle, trapped in this place, taught a person things. The walls spoke if you knew to listen, and I grew quite adept to hearing their sounds. Though, and I am certain of this, He had no way of knowing what I knew. It was an advantage, those little pieces of knowledge, and I could not afford to lose them. Yet, maybe I had grown too weary of His games, of being used and thrown aside like a child’s doll, because I did something immensely stupid during that visit. 

We spoke of random things; He pried and pushed for what He desired to know, for about an hour before I made my request. Tea. I asked Him during a lull in the conversation if He would be kind enough to provide some. He had, of course, typical minor indulgences. 

I sipped at my cup for a while, though He noticeably lacked one for Himself, before I let my fingers slip on the handle. There was no falseness to my embarrassment, to how silly I felt. I knew better than to pretend such things in front of Him. Though, truthfully, I couldn’t even if I had wanted to. My binding prohibited such lies. I scrambled to the floor where the shattered cup lay. Such a silly idea it was, but my curiosity had outvoted reason. My hand slipped along a jagged edge of the ceramic.  This wasn’t a tiny cut either, it was quite a gash, longer than I had intended it to be. Certainly not a tiny split in my lip. It was only then He even acknowledged the blunder at all. The atmosphere shifted. He crouched down beside me, snatching my hand in His grasp. 

“Stupid girl.” He muttered, just as He had before. “Stupid, stupid girl.”  
In that brief moment, I wondered if He knew what I did all those hours in the library, if He knew what suspicion I was confirming. Even now I could not say. Perhaps He did. He always knows.

He pushed the mess away with ease, leaving it scattered about the floor, dribbles of tea slowly soaking in. The servants would not be happy with me when they saw that. It’d be worth it though, seeing this, seeing Him. This time, as I hoped, He did not pretend to be anything but what He was.  
He pulled me roughly against Him, taking my snatched hand against His mouth. I saw it in His face this time, the way it changed. He looked older for a moment, starved. Near black irises turned bright red, the same color as the blood seeping from my hand. Nails turned to claws, keeping me still. Tiny fangs poked out between His lips. He didn’t just lick the blood from my hand this time. Those fangs dug in. Deep. They were sharp, like nicking oneself with a razor or, well, getting a cut with broken ceramic. They stung, but did not hurt. Once the initial feeling faded, I lost any sense at all for what was happening. The world swayed beneath me, then blinked out altogether. 

I woke the next morning, dressed properly and placed in bed. As they always did, the servants brought me my breakfast, somehow signaled to my waking. My whole head might as well have been filled with cotton, memories fuzzy and unclear. Out of some odd thread of curiosity, I asked my servers what had happened the night before. No one would speak a word of it. They said it must have been a strange dream. I had imagined a bizarre tale. What happened, they assured me, was that I had fallen ill. That the stain left from my cup resulted from my passing out from a fever. That nothing the night before had happened. 

My hand lacked any signs of the cut I made into it, and for a second, I almost believed their words. Almost, but never quiet. That was the problem with this place, with Him. Nothing ever seems right, but nothing ever fully fades away. An odd girl, He had called me. Perhaps there had been truth in those words, more truth than I had initially thought. A truth standing right outside my grasp. But I was learning quicker and quicker each time. I was no fool. And I refused to be trapped like one. 

He did not show up that next night, but one of his guards did. I had never been taken to his rooms, to any other part of the castle beyond where I needed to be. That was to change this night. First I was taken down an unfamiliar hallway to a room that could only be described as excessive. Extremely, disgustingly excessive. Filled to the brim with finery, not a single inch went untouched by some fancy dress jewel or shoe. "Dress." The guard ordered flatly, closing me in without much else to go off of. So I did. 

I danced around the room for a while, indulging in all the pretty things. I hadn't been told of any urgency. There were pretty dresses and even prettier things to go underneath them. All were finely crafted, and many of the ones I looked through, I noted, were tailored to me rather perfectly. Upon a sharp banging on the door, my journey was taken to an end, as I quickly picked my favorite things to wear. I wasn't used to the shoes I chose, a silly, tacky mistake, but they had been too wonderful to refuse.  
The Exasperated guard led me further through the castle, through halls I had never once crossed in all my tours of it. When we reached The King's room, a sudden urge to hide struck me. I couldn't say why, if there was any logic to it at all, but if the guard hadn't been walking me there, I'd have turned and run away. I wanted to run. Without the option, though, I instead knocked lightly on the door. 

"Enter." His voice reverberated through the door. Run.

"You called for me?" I asked upon opening 

"You certainly took your time." He turned to me, eyes fully running over my body. "And chose quite well."

"Thank you?" This man has an odd habit of compliments that feel like insults. 

"I heard you weren't feeling well." 

"Yes, I was told I had quite the fever." Not a lie, not in the words, only the implications. 

"You should care for yourself better."

"Isn't that what a husband is meant for." I took great pride in the shock on his face. Not the answer he expected of me then. I pushed further. "Is that not why I'm here." 

He had recovered, with a devilish grin. "Would you like it to be."

"I don't know." If it weren't for the fact I could not lie, I wouldn't have believed myself. It didn't sound true. 

"Do you know what I am, Elvie?" It was my turn for shock. He had never addressed me by that name. In fact, he rarely addressed me at all. 

"Not exactly." Another half-truth. 

"Not exactly." He parroted. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I've read many theories of you." 

"They are quite grand, aren't they? Though I must admit, I only keep my favorites. Some are just so... garish."

"Yes."

"So?" He asked, gesturing toward me. "What have you concluded?"

I didn't want to say. It felt wrong to speak of it, of what he could be. They had a million names, each book called them by another. But the name, the name did not matter. 

"It's not proper to ask questions you already know the answer to." 

"Ah, but it is quite fun."

When I didn't respond, his shoulders slumped in annoyance. "Will you not humor me?" I kept silent. "If we both know." He mused. "Perhaps I should just show you."

I heard the door crash close before I had even realized he wasn't in front of me anymore. I turned to face him, but he was already spinning me around. Yes. That night with the tea had not been my imagination. His beautiful blue eyes turned to a sickly violet, pupils flared. That young face morphed into something not quite human, fangs poking out gently over his lower lip. What was exposed of his neck held markings, inky black and of a crudely elegant design.  Not horrifying, not in the innate sense it should have been. Something about him, in all honesty, looked less scary this way. As far from human as he had ever been, and yet, "Human" is perhaps the only descriptor I could use. It was as if something had clicked in him. As if that off feeling he radiated dulled with his completeness. This was his self. His only self. I was afraid of him, but not what he was. Not what he chose to show me. 

"Is this why you called me here? To show me something I already knew?"

His hand caressed my face, that odd gesture he had grown fond of during moments like these. "To make use of your purpose."

I knew what that was now, knew I should fear it. I was silly not to. Young and silly, and perhaps just a little too curious for my own good. I remembered the sensation of those fangs against my hand, a distant thrum in the back of my mind. He tugged my head gently, guiding it to a tilt. I gave no resistance when his lips hit my neck. Soft lips touched me first, light kisses. There was no love in them, between us. It was a reassurance, an act of thanks for what he was about to take. Then came the fangs. Shap and unyielding they pierced my skin with that nagging itch. I closed my eyes, let myself feel the blood spilling, his tongue catching the beads that ran away. My mind went somewhere else.

I could feel him there, distantly latched on to me, but it felt like a dream like it was some faded memory from years past. A cloudy thought at the edge of my mind. I did not know where I had gone, what this place was, but I never wanted to leave. I was sitting in the garden on a warm morning, watching the sunrise, or by the shore, feet dipped in cool sea water. I was at peace, pure unending peace. Those fangs, somewhere, dug deeper, but all I heard was the birds, the waves. I was dying, losing that much blood. I knew he could kill me, that it wasn't an outlandish possibility, and yet, a part of me dove towards it, begged for more. Deeper. Those fangs dug in me, as deep as they could go. My blood, the thing holding me on this earth was dripping down in long lines out of those wounds, and I couldn't bring myself to care. 

When I awoke, I was not in my room. There was no stain in my eyeline, the sheets were too soft. I shot up, confused and disoriented. I faintly recognized the room. It had been the night when I last saw it, but the layout was still the same. The KIng had kept me in his room. I had been changed, just as the last time, he had taken from me, into one of my night dresses. There was no mark, no sign of anything from the night before, except the place I had slept. He was notably absent from the room, despite the fact that the sun was still on the horizon. It was awfully early. Perhaps he hadn't slept here at all. 

I got my answer not too long after, as I debated if I should stay or not. A servant I didn't recognize knocked swiftly on the door. She paid me little mind, thrusting a set of clothes into my hands and ordering me to bathe and dress. I was to attend breakfast. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was intruding, that I should return to my own rooms, my own side of the castle, but the servant stood dutifully in the doorway. I would bathe in The King's chambers it seemed. The intimacy of that, why there was any at all, made me look for anything else to think about. The night before was hazy, that same throb I felt the morning after I had dropped my teacup, hazy but there, slightly more this time. I found myself reaching for that memory, for the sensations I know had been there, but sat just out of my reach. Whatever he had done to me, there was shame in knowing I wanted more of it.  
When I was properly dressed, another display for his satisfaction I imagine, the servant escorted me wordlessly down the same twisting hallways I had been taken through the first time, and then some more I was not familiar with until we reached the dining hall. This room, at least, I recognized, though most of my meals had been served in my rooms or to the library. 

"Much less tacky." Was his greeting.

Despite myself, my cheeks flared red. I had been a bit caught up in the novelty, but my outfit had been more than stylish, thank you very much. "You and I have different definitions of tacky."

"I think you and I have different definitions of a lot of things."

"Comes with that ages-old perspective, I imagine."

"Are you going to stand there all day, or would you like to eat?" There was something predatory about the way he said it, something that made my neck sting. 

I quickly took the seat at the opposite end of the table, earning an amused look. 

"I won't bite." I wanted him to.

"Think your clever do you?" I shifted in my seat.  

"I do not have to think what is objective fact." he sighed. "Come here." 

I sat firmly in my seat, grabbing a muffin from a basket. I wouldn't oblige, not just yet. 

"Here." He ordered flatly. 

"Why?" 

His chair squeaked against the floor, and in a moment his nails were digging roughly in my arm, dragging me to the other end of the table, and plopping me, rather unceremoniously in the seat beside his. 

"You are my wife are you not?" He said, returning to his own as if nothing had happened. 

"Your wife whom you have a habit of ignoring until it suits you." Because I had gone months without seeing him. Months of nothing, to scattered visits, to three days in a row. I was sick of inconsistency, of wondering. I knew what he was, but not what I was to him. 

"It's only polite to give you time to adjust."

"Adjustment, that's your excuse?"

"Would you have run if this was your first day here?" If he had shown me then, if I hadn't learned in little, mysterious pieces. 

"Yes." He raised his eyebrows, a proud smile of triumph on his face. Yes. I would have run far away. There would be no safety with a monster like that. But this castle, in the times without him, had become a comfort, a place I enjoyed. "What happens now?"

He poured me some tea, the table in front of him noticeably bare. I supposed food wouldn't do much for him anyways. "What do you wish?"  
A loaded question. 

What did I wish for. More, my mind echoed. I wanted more. The words, though, didn't dare leave my mouth. I clamped my lips firmly shut, if I opened my mouth, they would spill. This awful little curse would betray me. 

"Say it." He ordered. "Anything you wish."

"You." Gods I wanted to burn up and die right there. To my surprise, there was no mockery, no victory in his voice. 

"Enjoy your breakfast, Elvie." He kissed my temple before disappearing into some other section of the castle. 

I most certainly did not enjoy my breakfast. Not one damn second of it.

I headed to my room, hoping to distract myself from the awful encounter, only to find myself a bit lost in the maze of hallways, and too embarrassed to ask one of the servants to guide me back. I had walked this side of the building a million times, there was no reason for me to end up so hopelessly lost, and yet here I was. A walk would do me good, I reasoned. I needed to clear my head after all this nonsense. 

I spent the next few hours wandering the castle despite the halls becoming familiar after only a few minutes. When my legs tired, I turned toward my room. When I arrived, however, it had been stripped to nothing. If it weren't for the stains on the ceiling, the mark of my tea cup, I would have thought I had taken a wrong turn. I stopped a servant dashing by. 

"My room-"

"His Majesty had your things moved this morning." She said, expression bewildered, as if I should have known.

"Right." I was too sheepish to enquire further, and besides, there was only one viable option as to where my things had been moved. My cheeks flushed as I asked, "Can you take me there? I still get a bit turned around." The servant smiled, an old womans smile.

"Of course, Ves Sa." My Queen . It was true, our marriage had rendered me a queen, but none had addressed me as such. Most of the servants avoided words with me at all. 

My suspicions were confirmed when we arrived outside the same door I had found myself at the night before. I thanked the servant and, upon confirming that I was alone, collapsed on the bed. I debated hunting him down, yelling at his assumptions but, well, I had done this to myself. you, I had answered. And he hadn't taken it as anything but what it was. I was his wife, after all, it would make sense to share a room. Not that it would be wrong if we didn't, but then, that arrangement never struck me as practical, certainly not in a situation like this. 

Dawn was still peaking when I felt my eyelids droop. There was no reason for sleep to pull at my this strongly, not when I had slept the night through. I rose instead, opting to flip through some of the books in the room. Some, I noted, were ones I had plucked from the library for my own stash, but most were undisturbed in their dust. Show pieces. Or perhaps he had read them far too many times to warrant opening them again. 

None of the books were pompous or prestigious in nature, the sort I'd expect from such a man. No, they were adventures, wild tales. Some were more grounded than others, but all were pleasure reading. Not a hint of stuffy literature to be found. Satisfied with my browsing, I allowed myself to fall into the trap of one story, some fantastical tale of a dutiful, righteous hero. Morally righteous, but engrossing. 

I had made it about halfway through when the bedroom door opened, The King marching his way through. A moment of surprised passed over him, as if he hadn't expected me. 

"You could have asked." I greeted him.

"I simply gave you what you wished for."

"And what is it I wish, King." 

"Soren." 

I blinked. 

"If we are to live together, you should at least know my name. Do you not agree?" Soren. I hadn't even considered his name. It was hard to believe he even had one. 

"It does sound reasonable." 

"Why do you still take such issue with me?"

"Who said I took any issue at all?" He approached me, taking the book from my hands and lifting me from my seat. I squeaked in protest, but it did nothing. "Though I do object to being manhandled!" 

He dropped me on the bed. "That, unfortunately, you will have to live with."

"I most certainly will not." He climbed above me, but I shoved him to the side. To both of our surprise, he fell beside me. "Can we not just have one normal conversation?" I was desperate, honestly, I didn't like the way he was looking at me, the way my emotions twisted and fleeted everytime he occupied the same space as me. The fact that every encounter left my head spinning. It got tiring. 

"Would you prefer normal?"

"No." I hadn't expected that answer. Genuinely hadn't figured that out for myself yet. 

"Then stop talking." He kissed me, not one of his millisecond long affections, but a proper kiss. A lovers kiss. To my own surprise, I didn't reject it. 

My arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. It was a silly stupid idea. Neither of us were fools, though. Neither of us saw it for anything but what it was, as far as I could tell. He found my neck with little hesitation. There was no prelude this time, no warning kisses. For the third day in a row, his fangs pierced my skin.

My fingers entwined in his hair, legs squirming against his. My neck stung with the sharp piercing of its flesh. Only for a second. Not nearly as long as the night before. 

That feeling did not greet me. I waited to feel it, for the wave of peace and serenity. All I got was heat. Not the pleasant kind. Not the kind one would expect to feel so intimately beneath another. It was the heat of a fever, of spending too long in the garden on a hot day. 

I pushed on his shoulders writhed to free myself from that horrible heat. He did not let go. One of his hands came up, grabbing my hair to hold me in place. I struggled, but the heat zapped my energy. Hot. Too hot.  
The fangs left my neck. My body jolted.  First there was nothing, then there was bliss. It was hard to remember where I was, who I was. Somewhere, his hand was stroking my hair. Time fizzled. I don't think the whole ordeal lasted for more than a few minute. I'd be surprised to hear if even a full minute went by. But then, in the midst of it, it felt like forever. Like I'd been laying there for years trapped in this bubble of sensation. 

Then it was gone. Being cascaded with ice water would have been less jarring. The King- Soren- had moved to lay beside me at some point. I can say, to this day I will claim insanity for what happened when I came to my senses enough to see him. I punched an immortal in the face, like a goddamn idiot.  

He just smiled, as if I was a pup nipping at him. As if there wasn't a nice mark where my fist had landed. I had to admit though, I think my knuckles took more damage. Skulls, evidently, are not soft. 

“Interesting.” He mused, taking my injured hand. I might have protested if I had enough energy. If I wasn't teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. 

Despite living in the same castle, in the same room no less, I rarely saw him over the next few week. The times I did, though, I took great satisfaction in the bruise that lasted on his cheek. Immortal, but not invincible, it seems. And no more likely to give me the answers I wanted. Sometimes, in the rare moments we spent together, he would say things I couldn't follow and any inquiry would be met with distraction. The rest of the time was met with fangs and soft words. Soft. Because each bite grew gentler. More kisses. More sweetness. Love. As if such a creature could feel that. Whatever it was, I stopped fighting them. I stopped fighting him. His little remarks of “how odd” and “what a peculiar girl you are.” My mind grew dizzy and numb searching for answers I could not find. I was weak. I gave in. 

The next time he properly approached me, my world had been spun. I did little to stop him as he pushed me to our bed, his lips upon mine. Clothes a mere nuisance. I expected pleasure. I expected fangs. I received neither. Not right away. His mouth found my ear, a soft question plaguing my mind. “Be mine?”

I should have asked then what it meant, but the promise was enough. The promise filled my heart. Took the pain of the heat and swept it away.

“Yes.”

He bit down on my neck, same as he always had, but this was different. Screamed of something more. Something ancient and devious. The tiny scars on my neck inked themselves black, spread their way down to the one across my wrist in some intricate ancient pattern. A binding to keep for an eternity.

It's quite a story, don't you think? I just wish it was so. I wish I could stop here and say that this was my ending, that I had lived happily in this castle for years and years with a man who loved me. But I have a confession. None of what I've claimed to be the truth is. For in text is the only way I'm allowed to lie. So remember the story you've read here. Remember me that way. Because the truth is cruel. The truth has trapped me here. I am a prisoner here, and I will soon be dead. I am fading. That, my dear reader, is the honest truth. And if you're reading this, do not make my mistakes. We're all his prisoners in the end. Do not extend your suffering beyond what it needs to be. Don't trust everything you see, do not believe his lies and most importantly, do not trust whatever is left of me.


End file.
